The World Keeps Turning
by Anya Urameshi
Summary: Lambo knocks some sense into a distraught Gokudera about a week after Tsuna's death. mentions of 8059 and RebornLambo. Set in the FutureArc continuity.


Title: The World Keeps Turning

Summary: Lambo knocks some sense into a distraught Gokudera about a week after Tsuna's death. mentions of 8059 and RebornLambo.

A/N: Written while listening to How to Save a Life by the Fray.

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Gokudera wasn't sure how this had started. He's said something, Lambo had said something, and somehow it had led to bleeding noses, bruised bones, and scorch marks.

The fight had not been potentially life-threatening one. Neither of the guardians really wanted to kill the other, even if the thought had crossed their minds a few times in the exchanging of blows. Somehow, it ended up with Lambo on top of him, holding him down with a strength that Gokudera had never before seen the younger use. His hands were held away from his body so that he could not grasp any of the explosives hidden on it and electricity skittered like a nervous cat around the two of them.

"You're not the only one who lost someone!" Lambo was yelling, and it came to Gokudera what this whole fight had been about.

_"It's not like anyone would care if I died...."_

"We all have!" the Thunder Guardian continued, words snarled in a tone that Gokudera had never heard from the boy. "Yamamoto lost his dad! Dokuro-san and Mukuro-san lost their friends! Lal Mirch lost Colonello! We ALL lost Tsuna! Don't act like you're the only one who's going through this! Because you're _not!"_

Gokudera stared up at the youngest Guardian with wide eyes. Understanding dawned on him from a memory that he had shoved to the back of his head years ago. An image of Lambo sitting outside the hospital room staring at the wall blankly.

_"I've wanted this...for so long....why does it hurt so much?"_

"Reborn," he stated. Lambo dropped him, turning away so that the older man couldn't see his face and Gokudera knew that his suspicion had been right. "You loved him, didn't you."

Lambo's eyes filled with tears that he swiped at angrily. "Yes, I did. Still do. Doesn't matter though, because by the time I realized it, it was too late. He was already gone." He jerked around and gave the Storm Guardian a harsh glare. "And eveytime I watch you push Yamamoto away, I just want to slap you so much that it about kills me not to. And you have the _nerve_ to call _me_ an idiot."

"It's not..."

"-the same? Yes. It is. No matter how much you want to lie to yourself Gokudera, I won't do it for you. You love Yamamoto; have for a long time, you were just too dumb to notice. Infact, you're so stupid that you probably haven't even noticed that he loves you back, or maybe you've always just been too far up Tsuna's ass to care."

Gokudera growled and wrenched his arm out of Lambo's grasp to punch him in the face again. The Thunder Guardian let himself fall back with it before elbowing him in the stomach hard.

"Don't talk...about the Tenth that way..." Gokudera wheezed, struggling to lift himself back up. Lambo slammed him back down and grabbed a fistful of his hair, jerking the other's face around to his.

"Why not? It's the truth. Maybe I could have put it less crudely, but the fact is that all you have ever cared about is Tsuna and Tsuna's happiness. You never cared about your own, and you certainly never gave a thought to anyone else's," Lambo growled, eyes snapping furiously. "Now Tsuna's dead and you're completely at a loss for what to do, because without Tsuna you feel like you shouldn't exist."

Gokudera's eyes widened as Lambo's words hit him like a dagger through the heart. He was right. The damn cow was right. "How-"

"I've been there," the other replied shortly. "After my sister died, I was in a pretty bad way. You probably don't remember because you've never given a damn about anything to do with me unless it involved me pissing you off somehow. Then Reborn died shortly after and I completely lost it and tried to kill myself. I probably would have succeeded if Ipin and Tsuna hadn't been there to stop me."

"How....how do you deal with it?" Gokudera asked, staring up at Lambo with a kind of awe. How had he never noticed this side to Lambo before? Had everyone missed it, or just him?

"You just have to move on. It's hard, believe me. But there are people who can help you." Lambo let go of Gokudera's shirt and sat back with a sigh. "What it comes down to is one simple fact: you're alive, and they aren't. You have to keep living because they can't."

Gokudera nodded, his eyes that held a new respect for the man in front of him watched as Lambo stood and reached down to pull him to his feet as well.

"When did you get so goddamned wise?" He asked, reaching into his pocket to pull out a cigarette, then thinking better of it and tucking the pack back in with the intention of tossing it out later.

"Sometime between puberty and realizing that the world doesn't stop turning just because you want to get off," Lambo replied, giving a small laugh that echoed sadly through the room which had been trashed by two people so full of regret that even a dying will bullet couldn't save them.


End file.
